Multicolored, almost fairy-tale animals. These are the main characters in the world of Valentina Bongiovanni, freelance illustrator, not even 30 years old, but a resolute professional, already with certain leverage in the sector.
After a degree at the IAAD in Torino, and some experiences in European capitals, like Madrid and Amsterdam, she had chosen the Master class in publishing illustration at the Mi.Master in Milano. The outcome was then determined. “I’ve decided to avoid the ‘newspaper’ world – she tells us in her studio in Torino – I like working with small and medium-sized businesses”. Thence several collaborations have started. The most recent one is with Beeopack: we together have realized a collection of ecological textile films for food, where the cotton they’re made of is soaked in a beeswax mixture in order t better preserve foodstuff. “A co-operation that I really liked”, Valentina smiles and foretells for the summer the launch of an always biocompatible and eco-friendly collection with a new “ocean” flavor.
In two years of activity, Valentina has worked with several renowned brands, such as Carpano, Superga, Carioca. She has also collaborated with ‘ScarletVirgo’, an important brand of bags in Milano, and ‘Extraliberi’, the Association that employs the inmates of the prison in Torino, offering them to work in the screen-printing. Furthermore, every year, on 8 March, she realizes a female figure, and maybe in the future, a collection of those works will be shown in a personal exhibition.
The illustration areas are diverse: the traditional printings, vases, woolen hats, shirts, and bags. All of them characterized by a “super chromatic contrast and fresh colors”. “It happens that the enterprises look for me, sometimes I am contacting them when I capture a message that draws me in”.
“I started my work using pencils – Valentina says – then I moved to the digital design. The new frontier in digital design is the ‘Procreate Ipad’ software. Digital does not mean less handmade, but simply made through a different faster technique, that allows the 2.0 illustrator to better seize the opportunities, make adjustments and give more space to creativity”. Valentina’s world is inhabited by plenty of animals (which most inspire her artistic bent) and a few women. She prefers using Instagram, more than the other social media. Among the illustrators of the new generations, Valentina states, “there is a lot of cooperation, with respect of our own exclusiveness”.
“We are not run out of work – she admits – maybe we have some difficulties in making the value and the right price of our products recognized, but over time I’ve learned to find the right arguments and, when needed, to say No”.